Zoe Kusama
Zoe Kusama (Jpn: 草間ゾエ; 1981–2019), appearing as a recurring character in Season 5 of Criminal Case, was a quasi-suspect in four cases across the season. She also had a minor appearance in Game Over (Case #18 of The Conspiracy). Later, she was revealed to be the killer of scientist Ernesto Vega in Death in My Hand (Case #34 of The Conspiracy) before being murdered in Head Case (Case #52 of The Conspiracy). Profile Zoe was a 37-year-old former social worker of Japanese-American heritage. She had mid-length, wavy black hair and sports silver hoop earrings. She wore a green jacket over a yellow shirt and a white vest. In her first quasi-suspect appearance, her face, hair, and clothes were disheveled and dirty. She also had glasses tucked into her shirt. In her second quasi-suspect appearance onwards, her face, hair and clothes were clean. In her suspect appearance, she had a blue stain on her jacket and it is known that Zoe used dental floss, wore hiking boots and used insect repellent. At the time of her death, Zoe was seen wearing a standard white hospital gown with a diamond pattern. She also wore a pair of light orange slippers. Events of Criminal Case Finding a missing Zoe Stonewalled After arresting Stella Ziarati's killer, Louis Leroux approached Gloria and the player, stating that his friend, Zoe, had gone missing some months prior, last seen on August 19. He said that he had traced Zoe's phone to Cooper Park. Gloria and the player then took the case. Gloria and the player found Zoe's phone in Cooper Park. According to Cathy, all the data on the phone had been wiped, but had Jones' fingerprints all over it. The two then talked to Jones, who said that he was put on Zoe's case, but the trail had turned cold after he found Zoe's phone in the library. After a while, Gloria and the player went to the library. In the library, they found a poem entitled "The 19th of August", which was the day Zoe had disappeared. After finding out that the poem was written by poet Omar Al Hadawi, they talked to him. Omar said that he had seen a car with tinted black windows stop in front of her, and that she had gone inside and since then vanished. After they chased the lead, Jones got angry, saying that everyone was doubting his detective skills. Shooting Star After arresting Ronald Rooney's killer, the team (per Cathy) learned that Zoe and Jones had been dating prior to her disappearance. Gloria and the player then asked Jones about his deception, where they promised that they would be there for him. The Bloom of Doom After arresting Valereea Valz's killer, Gloria and the player investigated JJJ Junkyard to get a lead on Zoe's disappearance, as they (per Jones) learned that she had been looking into the disappearance of Trey Warner, who had last been seen at the junkyard. Per Rupert, they also learned that Trey had been kidnapped, which highly suggested that Zoe had also been kidnapped for looking into Trey's case. Hot Mess After arresting Voodoo Vince's killer, Jones and the player searched Maylin Park's garage for Zoe's notebook, which had been left there by Maylin after picking it up after one of their meetings for the Grimsborough Asian Women's Association. Per Gabriel, they learned that Zoe had been investigating the disappearances of dozens of social outcasts over the span of six months. However, Zoe had been unable to prove that the disappearances were criminal, meaning that they still had no leads on finding Zoe. The Art of Murder After arresting Meera Kat's killer, Ramirez informed Gloria and the player that he had found Zoe by Meera's performance stage. Gloria and the player then recovered Zoe, who, per Gabriel, displayed signs of severe amnesia. Some time later, Jones learned that Zoe had been found and demanded the player to take him to her. However, he was disappointed to learn that she didn't remember him. Later on, Zoe thanked the player for helping her and revealed that she recognized Tony Marconi's face from one of Gloria's files. This prompted Jones and the player to interrogate Tony about Zoe, who claimed that he didn't know who she was. Downward-Facing Dead After arresting Scott Morris's killer, Jones and the player convinced Zoe to try out yoga nidra to help her cope with the stress of recovering from amnesia with the help of Guruji and Gabriel. Game Over After the team closed the investigation into Juniper's murder and into DreamLife in general, Zoe rushed into the station and kissed Jones, telling him that she finally remembered him. I Lost My Heart in Xerda After arresting Kayla Markham's killer, Jones asked the player for help finding Zoe after she ran off during an argument. Per Cathy, they deduced that she had gone to confront Tony Marconi. They found her arguing with Tony, where they learned that she had remembered being strapped to a chair, surrounded by people. She confronted Tony to find answers as he was the only person she could remember. Bone of Contention After arresting Penny Farrell's killer, the player went with Rita and Zoe to the dog shelter to help Rita adopt a puppy. After finding a Doberman for Rita, Zoe told Jones that she had decided to volunteer at the dog shelter as being around the animals had cheered her up. Death in My Hand Zoe became a suspect for the first time when her boyfriend, Jones, and the player found her digital camera in a DreamLife dumpster in the dome's security checkpoint, meaning that she was near the dome. After being asked about this, Zoe told the team that she had been having strange dreams about the dome recently, so she decided to go to the dome and look at it herself to see if she could remember anything. However, Zoe then told the team that she remembered nothing at all. Later, the team heard a strange noise coming from the forest. After going there to see what happened, the team saw Louis Leroux with Zoe, who fainted while walking in the forest with him. Zoe was then coming around, telling Louis and the team that she suddenly felt dizzy and faint. After that, Jones took Zoe home to let her rest. Jones and the player came to talk to Zoe again after they (per Cathy) found out that the victim, Dr Ernesto, had her phone number. When being asked about this, Zoe admitted that she had given the victim her phone number. Zoe then explained that she was not allowed to go inside the dome so she had talked to Ernesto, who was seen coming out from the dome for research purposes. However, Zoe said that Ernesto had brushed her aside, but she had insisted Ernesto take her phone number so that the victim could call her if he thought of anything. In the end of the conversation, Zoe apologized to the team for not telling them about this. However, it was proven that Zoe had lied about giving the victim her phone number, as Jones and the player found out that Zoe was the killer of Dr Ernesto. Much to Jones's disbelief, Zoe confessed straight away, saying that she encountered Vega while she was looking near the dome to try to jog her memories. Upon seeing him, she remembered being strapped down in the lab while Vega was injecting her with various substances, using her as a test subject. Upon confronting him however, Vega only laughed at Zoe, saying nobody would believe a crazy, amnesiac woman. Welling up with anger, Zoe took a nearby rock and bashed Vega in the head until he died. Judge Powell then remanded Zoe in custody, pending a psychiatric evaluation. After Zoe was remanded in custody, she divulged her regained memories to Chief Parker and the player. She said that she was grabbed outside the library, shoved inside a black car, and sedated with chloroform before waking up under the dome with the people she was searching for when she was a social worker. All of them were subject to human experimentation, with everyone but her eventually dying. One day when she noticed her straps were loose, she pretended to be sedated then ran when Ernesto left her. She also told the team that when escaping, she had grabbed a box of papers about the experiment, but she had lost them in the sewer tunnel, prompting the team to go to the sewer tunnel for the papers. Later, after all the events, Jones finally faced Zoe, he then assured her that he did not think of her as a monster for killing Ernesto. After saying that she did not know anything about Protozane, a drug which DreamLife was synthesizing, Zoe told the team that she did remember that the room where she and other people were experimented on was Lab 88-B. In the end of the conversation, Jones promised that he and the team would bring DreamLife to justice. Up in Flames During the investigation, the team found out that Jones had learned why Zoe remembered Marconi. Jones then told the rest of the team that when he had visited her in the asylum that morning, she said that she had seen Marconi hauling the dead bodies of her fellow test subjects past her cell under the dome. Murder details Zoe's body was found with her head bashed in, slumped in a wheelchair at the Bromden Psychiatric Hospital. According to Martine, Zoe had been attacked with a pole of some kind, dying from blunt force trauma. She also noted traces of mouthwash around Zoe's head wound, allowing Martine to conclude that the killer used mouthwash. After reinvestigating the hospital courtyard, Gloria and the player found a blood-stained fence post. Amir confirmed that the blood belonged to Zoe, filing the fence post as the murder weapon. Amir detected traces of sweat on the fence post. From it, Amir concluded that the killer had brown eyes. Relationship with suspects Orderly Tobias Randall helped Zoe in her stay in the hospital, although he deemed her an irredeemable, cold-blooded killer. Dr Jennifer Russo was also helping Zoe recover from her amnesia and come to terms with killing Dr Vega. While Zoe kept getting better from their sessions, she eventually started accusing Dr Russo of overly prescribing her. Zoe became friends with serial killer Rosamund Wilcox, who was only making friends with her so that she could more easily kill her and break Jones' heart as revenge for getting her imprisoned. Zoe also made friends with Kai Gruber, but he became paranoid that she was sent by Rozetta Pierre to kill him after learning of her past with DreamLife. Louis' regular visits to Zoe's room in the hospital made her grow paranoid of him, leading her to demand that he stop seeing him. Killer and motives In a shocking turn of events, Louis turned out to be Zoe's killer. To Gloria and the player's horror and disbelief, Louis revealed that he had caught Zoe telekinetically levitating a teacup when he showed up in Zoe's room unannounced. Connecting her abilities to her time under the dome and realizing it was his duty to uncover the whole truth, Louis then asked to examine the extent of her condition. Zoe, freaking out at the prospect of more tests performed upon her, started screaming. In a panic over getting kicked out, Louis grabbed a fence post and smashed her head in to keep her quiet. Judge Powell sentenced him to life in prison. The team later discovered from Louis' notebook that he was in fact the fifth member of Ad Astra. They also found out that Louis had actually asked the police to find Zoe as he wanted to kill the sole survivor of the dome trials. In fact, he had made an attempt on her life just before her arrest for the murder of Dr Vega. He had also been regularly visiting Zoe in the psychiatric hospital to keep tabs on her, explaining why she was so freaked out by his visits. When he was asked to explain further, Louis hysterically said that he needed to perform the tests on Zoe whether she was dead or alive. Even later, the team realized Louis wanted to study the superhuman serum that gave Zoe her telekinetic powers out of fear of the mastermind behind Ad Astra, who had begun turning against them. Some time later, the team learned that Louis had stolen the superhuman serum from the mastermind, but was apprehensive of using it, anticipating its negative side effects. As Louis became the mastermind's target, he became increasingly desperate to perform tests on the superhuman serum so he and his fellow Ad Astrans could take it, even resolving to kill Zoe, the one person he knew had been exposed to the serum. Trivia *Zoe is one of the characters (aside from the victims) to have appeared as a clue in a crime scene. *Zoe is one of the characters to physically appear in six districts in The Conspiracy. *Zoe is one of the characters to appear as a quasi-suspect four times. *Zoe is one of the characters to become a suspect, killer, and victim. **She is also one of the only characters to become a suspect, quasi-suspect, killer, and victim. *Zoe is one of the characters who animate (or move) during at least one cutscene in the game. *Zoe is one of the killers who are interrogated once more during the Additional Investigation. *Zoe is the only victim whose body is autopsied twice. Case appearances Gallery ZKasumaConspiracyMi.png|Zoe, as she appeared in Shooting Star (Case #9 of The Conspiracy). ZKusamaConspiracyC243.png|Zoe, as she appeared in The Art of Murder (Case #12 of The Conspiracy). ZKusamaConspiracyQC248.png|Zoe, as she appeared in Downward-Facing Dead (Case #17 of The Conspiracy). ZKusamaConspiracyC249.png|Zoe, as she appeared in Game Over (Case #18 of The Conspiracy). ZKusamaConspiracyC254.png|Zoe, as she appeared in I Lost My Heart in Xerda (Case #23 of The Conspiracy). ZKusamaConspiracyC257.png|Zoe, as she appeared in Bone of Contention (Case #26 of The Conspiracy). ZKusamaConspiracyC265.png|Zoe, as she appeared in Death in My Hand (Case #34 of The Conspiracy). ZKusamaVictim.png|Zoe, as she appeared in Head Case (Case #52 of The Conspiracy). ZoeInJail.png|Zoe, remanded in custody pending a thorough psychiatric evaluation for the murder of Ernesto Vega. Zoe_Kusama_Body.png|Zoe's body. LouisInJail|Louis Leroux, Zoe's late killer. Jones-Case232-9.png|David Jones, Zoe's boyfriend. ZKusamaC265Mugshot.png Navigation Category:Criminal Case Category:Characters Category:Recurring characters Category:Suspects Category:Killers Category:Quasi-suspects Category:Victims